More Hints On Cooking, With Some Simple Receipts--Bread, Potatoes,
Soups, Stews, Beans, Fish, Meat, Venison
We may live without friends, we may live without books,
But civilized man cannot live without cooks.
IT is probably true that nothing connected with outdoor life in camp
is so badly botched as the cooking. It is not through any lack of the
raw material, which may be had of excellent quality in any country
village. It is not from lack of intelligence or education, for the men
you meet in the woods, as outers or sportsmen, are rather over than
under the average in these respects. Perhaps it is because it has been
dinned into our ears from early childhood, that an appetite, a healthy
longing for something good to eat, a tickling of the palate with
wholesome, appetizing food, is beneath the attention of an aesthetic,
intellectual man. Forgetting that the entire man, mental and physical,
depends on proper aliment and the healthy assimilation thereof; and
that a thin, dyspeptic man can no more keep up in the struggle of life,
than the lightning express can make connections, drawn by a worn out
locomotive.
I have never been able to get much help from cook-books, or the scores
of recipes published in various works on outdoor span. Take, for
example, Frank Forester's Fish and Fishing. He has more than seventy
recipes for cooking fish, over forty of which contain terms or names in
French. I dare say they are good--for a first-class hotel. I neither
cook nor converse in French and I have come to know that the plainest
cooking is the best, so that it be well done and wholesome. In making
up the rations for camping out, the first thing usually attended to is
bread. And if this be light, well-made bread, enough may be taken along
to last four or five days and this may be eked out with Boston
crackers, or the best hardtack, for a couple or three days more,
without the least hardship. Also, there are few camps in which some one
is not going out to the clearings every few days for mail, small
stores, etc. and a supply of bread can be arranged for, with less
trouble than it can be made. There are times however, when this is not
feasible, and there are men who prefer warm bread all the time. In this
case the usual resort, from Maine to Alaska, is the universal flapjack.
I do not like it; I seldom make it; it is not good. But it may be
eaten, with maple syrup or sugar and butter. I prefer a plain water
Johnnycake, made as follows (supposing your tins are something like
those described in Chapter II): Put a little more than a pint of water
in your kettle and bring it to a sharp boil, adding a small teaspoon
full of salt and two of sugar. Stir in slowly enough good corn meal to
make a rather stiff mush, let it cook a few minutes and set it off the
fire; then grease your largest tin dish and put the mush in it,
smoothing it on top. Set the dish on the outdoor range described in the
previous chapter, with a lively bed of coal beneath--but no blaze.
Invert the second sized tin over the cake and cover the dish with
bright live coals, that bottom and top may bake evenly and give it from
thirty-five to forty minutes for baking. It makes wholesome, palatable
bread, which gains on the taste with use.
Those who prefer wheat bread can make a passable article by using the
best wheat flour with baking powders, mixing three tablespoonfuls of
the powders to a quart of flour. Mix and knead thoroughly with warm
water to a rather thin dough and bake as above. Use the same
proportions for pancake batter. When stopping in a permanent camp with
plenty of time to cook, excellent light bread may be made by using dry
yeast cakes, though it is not necessary to "set" the sponge as directed
on the papers. Scrape and dissolve half a cake of the yeast in a gill
of warm water and mix it with the flour. Add warm water enough to make
it pliable and not too stiff: set in a warm place until it rises
sufficiently and bake as directed above. It takes several hours to rise.
I am afraid I shall discount my credit on camp cooking when I admit
that--if I must use fine flour--I prefer unleavened bread; what my
friends irreverently call "club bread." Not that it was ever made or
endorsed by any club of men that I know of, but because it is baked on
a veritable club; sassafras or black birch. This is how to make it: Cut
a club two feet long and three inches thick at the broadest end; peel
or shave off the bark smoothly and sharpen the smaller end neatly. Then
stick the sharpened end in the ground near the fire, leaning the broad
end toward a bed of live coals, where it will get screeching hot. While
it is heating, mix rather more than a half pint of best Minnesota flour
with enough warm water to make a dough. Add a half teaspoon full of
salt and a teaspoon full of sugar and mould and pull the dough until it
becomes lively. Now, work it into a ribbon two inches wide and half an
inch thick, wind the ribbon spirally around the broad end of the club,
stick the latter in front of the fire so that the bread will bake
evenly and quickly to a light brown and turn frequently until done,
which will be in about thirty minutes. When done take it from the fire,
stand the club firmly upright and pick the bread off in pieces as you
want it to eat. It will keep hot a long time and one soon becomes fond
of it.
To make perfect coffee, just two ingredients are necessary, and only
two. These are water and coffee. It is owing to the bad management of
the latter that we drink poor coffee.
Mocha is generally considered to be the best type of coffee, with Java
a close second. It is the fashion at present to mix the two in
proportions to suit, some taking two pans Java to one of Mocha, others
reversing these proportions. Either way is good, or the Mocha is quite
as good alone. But there is a better berry than either for the genuine
coffee toper. This is the small, dark green berry that comes to market
under the generic name of Rio, that name covering half a dozen grades
of coffee raised in different provinces of Brazil, throughout a country
extending north and south for more than 1,200 miles. The berry alluded
to is produced along the range of high hills to the westward of Bahia
and extending north toward the Parnahiba. It has never arrested
attention as a distinct grade of the article, but it contains more
coffee or caffein to the pound than any berry known to commerce. It is
the smallest, heaviest and darkest green of any coffee that comes to
our market from Brazil and may be known by these traits. I have tested
it in the land where it is grown and also at home, for the past sixteen
years and I place it at the head of the list, with Mocha next. Either
will make perfect coffee, if treated as follows: of the berry, browned
and ground, take six heaping tablespoonfuls and add three pints of cold
water; place the kettle over the fire and bring to a sharp boil; set it
a little aside where it will bubble and simmer until wanted, and just
before pouring, drip in a half gill of cold water to settle it. That is
all there is to it. The quantity of berry is about twice as much as
usually given in recipes: but if you want coffee, you had better add
two spoonfuls than cut off one.
In 1867 and again in 1870, I had occasion to visit the West India
Islands and Brazil. In common with most coffee topers, I had heard much
of the super-excellence ascribed to "West India coffee" and "Brazilian
coffee." I concluded to investigate, I had rooms at the Hotel d'Europe,
Para, North Brazil. There were six of us, English and American
boarders. Every morning, before we were out of our hammocks, a
barefooted, half naked Mina negress came around and served each of us
with a small cup of strong, black coffee and sugar ad libitum. There
was not enough of it for a drink; it was rather in the nature of a
medicine, and so intended--"To kill the biscos," they said. The coffee
was above criticism.
I went, in the dark of a tropical morning with Señor João, to the
coffee factory where they browned the berry and saw him buy a pound,
smoking hot, for which he paid twenty-five cents, or quite as much as
it would cost in New York. In ten minutes the coffee was at the hotel
and ground. This is the way they brewed it: A round-bottomed kettle was
sitting on the brick range, with a half gallon of boiling water in it.
Over the kettle a square piece of white flannel was suspended, caught
up at the corners like a dip net. In this the coffee was placed and a
small darky put in his time steadily with a soup ladle, dipping the
boiling water from the kettle and pouring it on the coffee. There was a
constant stream percolating through coffee and cloth, which, in the
course of half an hour, became almost black, and clear as brandy. This
was "Brazilian coffee." As the cups used were very small, and as none
but the Northerners drank more than one cup, I found that the hotel did
not use over two quarts of coffee each morning. It struck me that a
pound of fresh Rio coffee berry ought to make a half gallon of rather
powerful coffee.
On my arrival home--not having any small darky or any convenient
arrangement for the dip net--I had a sack made of light, white flannel,
holding about one pint. In this I put one quarter pound of freshly
ground berry, with water enough for five large cups. It was boiled
thoroughly and proved just as good as the Brazilian article, but too
strong for any of the family except the writer. Those who have a fancy
for clear, strong "Brazilian coffee," will see how easily and simply it
can be made.
But, on a heavy knapsack-and-rifle tramp among the mountains, or a
lone canoe cruise in a strange wilderness, I do not carry coffee. I
prefer tea. Often, when too utterly tired and beaten for further
travel, I have tried coffee, whisky or brandy, and a long experience
convinces me that there is nothing so restful and refreshing to an
exhausted man as a dish of strong, green tea. To make it as it should
be made, bring the water to a high boil and let it continue to boil for
a full minute. Set it off the fire and it will cease boiling; put in a
handful of tea and it will instantly boil up again; then set it near
the fire, where it will simmer for a few minutes, when it will be ready
for use. Buy the best green tea you can find and use it freely on a
hard tramp. Black, or Oolong tea, is excellent in camp. It should be
put in the pot with cold water and brought to the boiling point.
Almost any man can cook potatoes, but few cook them well. Most people
think them best boiled in their jackets, and to cook them perfectly in
this manner is so simple and easy, that the wonder is how anyone can
fail. A kettle of screeching hot water with a small handful of salt in
it, good potatoes of nearly equal size, washed clean and clipped at the
ends, these are the requisites. Put the potatoes in the boiling water,
cover closely and keep the water at high boiling pitch until you can
thrust a sharp sliver through the largest potato. Then drain off the
water and set the kettle in a hot place with the lid partly off. Take
them out only as they are wanted; lukewarm potatoes are not good, They
will be found about as good as potatoes can be, when cooked in their
jackets. But there is a better way, as thus: Select enough for a mess
of smooth, sound tubers; pare them carefully, taking off as little as
possible, because the best of the potato lies nearest the skin, and
cook as above. When done, pour the water off to the last drop; sprinkle
a spoonful of salt and fine cracker crumbs over them; then shake, roll
and rattle them in the kettle until the outsides are white and floury.
Keep them piping hot until wanted, It is the way to have perfect boiled
potatoes.
Many outers are fond of roast potatoes in camp; and they mostly spoil
them in the roasting, although there is no better place than the
campfire in which to do it. To cook them aright, scoop out a basin-like
depression under the fore-stick, three or four inches deep and large
enough to hold the tubers when laid side by side; fill it with bright,
hardwood coals and keep up a strong heat for half an hour or more.
Next, clean out the hollow, place the potatoes in it and cover them
with hot sand or ashes, topped with a heap of glowing coals, and keep
up all the heat you like. In about twenty minutes commence to try them
with a sharpened hardwood sliver; when this will pass through them they
are done and should be raked out at once. Run the sliver through them
from end to end, to let the steam escape and use immediately, as a
roast potato quickly becomes soggy and bitter. I will add that, in
selecting a supply of potatoes for camp, only the finest and smoothest
should be taken.
A man may be a trout-crank, he may have been looking forward for ten
weary months to the time when he is to strike the much dreamed of
mountain stream, where trout may be taken and eaten without stint.
Occasionally--not often--his dream is realized, For two or three days
he revels in fly-fishing and eating brook trout. Then his enthusiasm
begins to subside. He talks less of his favorite flies and hints that
wading hour after hour in ice-water gives him cramps in the calves of
his legs. Also, he finds that brook trout, eaten for days in
succession, pall on the appetite. He hankers for the flesh-pots of the
restaurant and his soul yearns for the bean-pot of home.
Luckily, some one has brought a sack of white beans, and the expert--
there is always an expert in camp--is deputed to cook them. He accepts
the trust and proceeds to do it. He puts a quart of dry beans and a
liberal chunk of pork in a two-quart kettle, covers the mess with water
and brings it to a rapid boil. Presently the beans begin to swell and
lift the lid of the kettle: their conduct is simply demoniacal. They
lift up the lid of the kettle, they tumble out over the rim in a way to
provoke a saint, and they have scarcely begun to cook. The expert is
not to be beaten. As they rise, he spoons them out and throws them
away, until half of the best beans being wasted, the rest settle to
business. He fills the kettle with water and watches it for an hour.
When bean-skins and scum arise he uses the spoon; and when a ring of
greasy salt forms around the rim of the kettle, he carefully scrapes it
off, but most of it drops back into the pot, When the beans seem cooked
to the point of disintegration, he lifts off the kettle and announces
dinner. It is not a success. The largest beans are granulated rather
than cooked, while the mealy portion of them has fallen to the bottom
of the kettle and become scorched thereon, and the smaller beans are
too hard to be eatable. The liquid, that should be palatable bean soup,
is greasy salt water, and the pork is half raw. The party falls back,
hungry and disgusted. Even if the mess were well cooked, it is too
salty for eating. And why should this be so? Why should any sensible
man spend years in acquiring an education that shall fit him for the
struggle of life, yet refuse to spend a single day in learning how to
cook the food that must sustain the life? It is one of the conundrums
no one will ever find out.
There is no article of food more easily carried, and none that
contains more nourishment to the pound, than the bean. Limas are
usually preferred, but the large white marrow is just as good. It will
pay to select them carefully. Keep an eye on grocery stocks and when
you strike a lot of extra large, clean beans, buy twice as many as you
need for camp use. Spread them on a table, a quart at a time and
separate the largest and best from the others. Fully one-half will go
to the side of the largest and finest, and these may be put in a muslin
bag and kept till wanted. Select the expeditionary pork with equal
care, buying nothing but thick, solid, "clear," with a pink tinge.
Reject that which is white and lardy. With such material, if you cannot
lay over Boston baked beans, you had better sweep the cook out of camp.
This is how to cook them: Put a pound or a little more of clean pork
in the kettle, with water enough to cover it. Let it boil slowly half
an hour. In the meantime, wash and parboil one pint of beans. Drain the
water from the pork and place the beans around it; add two quarts of
water and hang the kettle where it will boil steadily, but not rapidly,
for two hours. Pare neatly and thinly five or six medium sized potatoes
and allow them from thirty to forty minutes (according to size and
variety), in which to cook. They must be pressed down among the beans
so as to be entirely covered. If the beans be fresh and fine they will
probably fall to pieces before time is up. This, if they are not
allowed to scorch, makes them all the better. If a portion of pork be
left over, it is excellent sliced very thin when cold and eaten with
bread. The above is a dinner for three or four hungry men.
It is usually the case that some of the party prefer baked beans. To
have these in perfection, add one gill of raw beans and a piece of pork
three inches square to the foregoing proportions. Boil as above, until
the beans begin to crack open; then fork out the smaller piece of pork,
place it in the center of your largest cooking tin, take beans enough
from the kettle to nearly fill the tin, set it over a bright fire on
the range, invert the second sized tin for a cover, place live,
hardwood coals on top and bake precisely as directed for bread--only,
when the coals on top become dull and black, brush them off, raise the
cover and take a look. If the beans are getting too dry, add three or
four spoonfuls of liquor from the kettle, replace cover and coals, and
let them bake until they are of a rich light brown on top. Then serve.
It is a good dish. If Boston can beat it, I don't want to lay up
anything for old age.
Brown bread and baked beans have a natural connection in the average
American mind, and rightly. They supplement each other, even as spring
lamb and green peas with our transatlantic cousins. But there is a
better recipe for brown bread than is known to the dwellers of the Hub--
one that has captured first prizes at country fairs and won the
approval of epicures from Maine to Minnesota; the one that brought
honest old Greeley down, on his strictures anent "country bread." And
here is the recipe; take it for what it is worth and try it fairly
before condemning it. It is for home use: One quart of sweet milk, one
quart of sour, two quarts of Indian meal and one quart of flour and a
cupful of dark, thin Porto Rico molasses. Use one teaspoon full of soda
only. Bake in a steady, moderate oven, for four hours. Knead thoroughly
before baking.
Soup is, or should be, a leading food element in every woodland camp.
I am sorry to say that nothing is, as a rule, more badly botched, while
nothing is more easily or simply cooked as it should be. Soup requires
time and a solid basis of the right material. Venison is the basis, and
the best material is the bloody part of the deer, where the bullet went
through. We used to throw this away; we have learned better. Cut about
four pounds of the bloody meat into convenient pieces and wipe them as
clean as possible with leaves or a damp cloth, but don't wash them. Put
the meat into a five-quart kettle nearly filled with water and raise it
to a lively boiling pitch. Let it boil for two hours. Have ready a
three-tined fork made from a branch of birch or beech and with this,
test the meat from time to time; when it parts readily from the bones,
slice in a large onion. Pare six large, smooth potatoes, cut five of
them into quarters and drop them into the kettle; scrape the sixth one
into the soup for thickening. Season with salt and white pepper to taste.
When, by skirmishing with the wooden fork, you can fish up bones with
no meat on them, the soup is cooked and the kettle may be set aside to
cool. Any hungry sportsman can order the next motion. Squirrels--red,
black, gray or fox--make nearly as good a soup as venison, and better
stew. Hares, rabbits, grouse, quail, or any of the smaller game birds,
may be used in making soup; but all small game is better in a stew.
To make a stew, proceed for the first two hours precisely as directed
for soup; then slice in a couple of good-sized onions and six medium
potatoes. When the meat begins to fall from the bones, make a
thickening by rubbing three tablespoonfuls of flour and two spoonfuls
of melted butter together; thin to the consistency of cream with liquor
from the kettle and drip slowly into the stew, stirring briskly
meanwhile. Allow all soups and stews to boil two hours before seasoning
and use only the best table salt and white (or black) pepper. Season
sparingly; it is easier to put salt in than to get it out. Cayenne
pepper adds zest to a soup or stew, but, as some dislike it, let each
man season his plate to his own cheek.
Fried squirrels are excellent for a change, but are mostly spoiled by
poor cooks, who put tough old he's and tender young squirrels together,
treating all alike. To dress and cook them properly, chop off heads,
tails and feet with the hatchet; cut the skin on the back crosswise;
and, inserting the two middle fingers, pull the skin off in two parts,
(head and tail). Clean and cut them in halves, leaving two ribs on the
hindquarters. Put hind and fore quarters into the kettle and parboil
until tender. This will take about twenty minutes for young ones and
twice as long for the old.
When a sharpened sliver will pass easily through the flesh, take the
hindquarters from the kettle, drain and place them in the frying pan
with pork fat hissing hot. Fry to a light, rich brown. It is the only
proper way to cook squirrels. The forequarters are to be left in the
kettle for a stew.
It sometimes happens that pigeons are very plentiful and the camp is
tempted into over-shooting and over-cooking, until every one is
thoroughly sick of pigeons. This is all wrong. No party is, or can be,
justified in wanton slaughter, just because birds happen to be
plentiful; they will soon be scarce enough. Pigeons are hardly game,
and they are not a first-class bird; but a good deal may be got out of
them by the following method: Dress them, at the rate of two birds to
one man; save the giblets; place in the kettle and boil until the
sliver will easily pierce the breast; fork them out, cut the thick meat
from each side of the breast bone, roll slightly in flour and put the
pieces in the pan, frying them in the same way as directed for
squirrels. Put the remainder of the birds in the kettle for a stew.
Quail are good cooked in the same manner, but are better roasted or
broiled. To roast them, parboil for fifteen minutes, and in the
meantime cut a thin hardwood stick, eighteen inches long for each bird.
Sharpen the sticks neatly at both ends; impale the birds on one end and
thrust the sticks into the ground near the fire, leaning them so that
the heat will strike strongly and evenly. Hang a strip of pork between
the legs of each bird and turn frequently until they are a rich brown.
When the sharpened sliver will pass easily through the breast they are
done.
Woodcock are to be plucked, but not drawn. Suspend the bird in a
bright, clear heat, hang a ribbon of fat pork between the legs and
roast until well done; do not parboil him.
Ruffed grouse are excellent roasted in the same manner, but should
first be parboiled. Mallards, teal, butterballs, all edible ducks, are
to be treated the same as grouse. If you are ever lucky enough to feast
on a canvas-back roasted as above, you will be apt to borrow a leaf
from Oliver Twist.
Venison steak should be pounded to tenderness, pressed and worked into
shape with the hunting-knife and broiled over a bed of clean hardwood
coals. A three-pronged birch fork makes the best broiler. For roast
venison, the best portion is the forward part of the saddle. Trim off
the flanky parts and ends of the ribs; split the backbone lengthwise,
that the inner surface may be well exposed; hang it by a strong cord or
bark string in a powerful, even heat; lay thin strips of pork along the
upper edge and turn from time to time until done. It had better be left
a little rare than overdone. Next to the saddle for roasting, comes the
shoulder. Peel this smoothly from the side, using the hunting knife;
trim neatly and cut off the leg at the knee; gash the thickest part of
the flesh and press shreds of pork into the gashes, with two or three
thin slices skewered to the upper part. Treat it in the roasting as
described above. It is not equal to the saddle when warm, but sliced
and eaten cold, is quite as good.
And do not despise the fretful porcupine; he is better than he looks.
If you happen on a healthy young specimen when you are needing meat,
give him a show before condemning him. Shoot him humanely in the head
and dress him. It is easily done; there are no quills on the belly and
the skin peels as freely as a rabbit's. Take him to camp, parboil him
for thirty minutes and roast or broil him to a rich brown over a bed of
glowing coals. He will need no pork to make him juicy, and you will
find him very like spring lamb, only better.
I do not accept the decision that ranks the little gray rabbit as a
hare, simply because he has a slit in his lip; at all events I shall
call him a rabbit for convenience, to distinguish him from his
longlegged cousin, who turns white in winter, never takes to a hole and
can keep ahead of hounds nearly all day, affording a game, musical
chase that is seldom out of hearing. He never by any chance has an
ounce of fat on him and is not very good eating. He can, however, be
worked into a good stew or a passable soup--provided he has not been
feeding on laurel. The rabbit is an animal of different habits and
different attributes. When jumped from his form, he is apt to "dig out"
for a hole or the nearest stone heap. Sometimes an old one will potter
around a thicket, ahead of a slow dog, but his tendency is always to
hole. But he affords some sport, and as an article of food, beats the
long-legged hare out of sight. He is excellent in stews or soups, while
the after half of him, flattened down with the hatchet, parboiled and
fried brown in butter or pork fat, is equal to spring chicken.
In the cooking of fish, as of flesh and fowl, the plainest and
simplest methods are best; and for anything under two pounds, it is not
necessary to go beyond the frying pan. Trout of over a pound should be
split down the back, that they may lie well in the pan and cook evenly.
Roll well in meal, or a mixture of meal and flour, and fry to a rich
brown in pork fat, piping hot. Larger fish may just as well be fried,
but are also adapted to other methods, and there are people who like
fish broiled and buttered, or boiled. To boil a fish, split him on the
back and broil him four minutes, flesh side down, turn and broil the
other side an equal time. Butter and season to taste. To boil, the
fish should weigh three pounds or more. Clean and crimp him by gashing
the sides deeply with a sharp knife. Put him in a kettle of boiling
water, strongly salted and boil twenty-five minutes. For each
additional pound above three, add five minutes. For gravy, rub together
two tablespoonfuls of flour and one of melted butter, add one heaping
teaspoon full of evaporated milk and thin with liquor from the kettle.
When done, it should have the consistency of cream. Take the fish from
the kettle, drain, pour the gravy over it and eat only with wheat bread
or hardtack, with butter. The simplest is best, healthiest and most
appetizing.
As a rule, on a mountain in tramp or a canoe cruise, I do not tote
canned goods. I carry my duffle in a light, pliable knapsack, and there
is an aggravating antagonism between the uncompromising rims of a
fruit-can and the knobs of my vertebrae, that twenty years of practice
have utterly failed to reconcile. And yet, I have found my account
in a can of condensed milk, not for tea or coffee, but on bread as a
substitute for butter. And I have found a small can of Boston baked
beans a most helpful lunch, with a nine-mile carry ahead. It was not
epicurean, but had staying qualities.
I often have a call to pilot some muscular young friend into the deep
forest and he usually carries a large pack-basket, with a full supply
of quart cans of salmon, tomatoes, peaches, etc. As in duty bound, I
admonish him kindly, but firmly, on the folly of loading his young
shoulders with such effeminate luxuries; often, I fear, hurting his
young feelings by brusque advice. But at night, when the campfire burns
brightly and he begins to fish out his tins, the heart of the Old
Woodsman relents, and I make amends by allowing him to divide the
groceries.
There is a method at cooking usually called "mudding up," which I have
found to preserve the flavor and juiciness of ducks, grouse, etc.,
better than any other method. I described the method in Forest and
Stream more than a year ago, but a brief repetition may not be out of
place here. Suppose the bird to be cooked is a mallard, or better
still, a canvas-back. Cut off the head and most part of the neck; cut
off the pinions and pull out the tail feathers, make a plastic cake of
clay or tenacious earth an inch thick and large enough to envelop
the bird and cover him with it snugly. Dig an oval pit under the
fore-stick, large enough to hold him, and fill it with hot coals,
keeping up a strong heat. Just before turning in for the night, clean
out the pit, put in the bird, cover with hot embers and coals, keeping
up a brisk fire over it all night. When taken out in the morning you
will have an oval, oblong mass of baked clay, with a well roasted bird
inside. Let the mass cool until it can be handled, break off the clay,
and feathers and skin will come with it, leaving the bird clean and
skinless. Season it as you eat, with salt, pepper and a squeeze of
lemon if you like, nothing else.
In selecting salt, choose that which has a gritty feel when rubbed
between the thumb and finger, and use white pepper rather than black,
grinding the berry yourself. Procure a common tin pepper-box and fill
it with a mixture of fine salt and Cayenne pepper--ten spoonsfuls of
the former and one of the latter. Have it always where you can lay your
hand on it; you will come to use it daily in camp, and if you ever get
lost, you will find it of value. Fish and game leave a flat, flashy
taste eaten without salt, and are also unwholesome.
Do not carry any of the one hundred and one condiments, sauces,
garnishes, etc., laid down in the books. Salt, pepper and lemons fill
the bill in that line. Lobster-sauce, shrimp-sauce, marjoram, celery,
parsley, thyme, anchovies, etc., may be left at the hotels.
It may be expected that a pocket volume on woodcraft should contain a
liberal chapter of instruction on hunting. It would be quite useless.
Hunters, like poets, are born, not made. The art cannot be taught on
paper. A few simple hints, however, may not be misplaced. To start
aright, have your clothes fitted for hunting. Select good cassimere of
a sort of dull, no colored, neutral tint, like a decayed stump; and
have coat, pants and cap made of it. For foot-gear, two pairs of heavy
yarn socks, with rubber shoes or buckskin moccasins. In hunting,
"silence is gold." Go quietly, slowly and silently. Remember that the
bright-eyed, sharp-eared woodfolk can see, hear and smell, with a
keenness that throws our dull faculties quite in the shade. As you go
lumbering and stick-breaking through the woods, you will never know how
many of these quietly leave your path to right and left, allowing you
to pass, while they glide away, unseen, unknown. It is easily seen that
a sharp-sensed, light bodied denizen of the woods can detect the
approach of a heavy, bifurcated, booted animal, a long way ahead and
avoid him accordingly.
But there is an art, little known and practiced, that invariably
succeeds in out-thinking most wild animals; an art, simple in conception
and execution, but requiring patience: a species, so to speak, of high
art in forestry--the art of "sitting on a log." I could enlarge on
this. I might say that the only writer of any note who has mentioned
this phase of woodcraft is Mr. Charles D. Warner; and he only speaks of
it in painting the character of that lazy old guide, "Old Phelps."
Sitting on a log includes a deal of patience, with oftentimes cold
feet and chattering teeth; but, attended to faithfully and patiently,
is quite as successful as chasing a deer all day on tracking snow,
while it can be practiced when the leaves are dry and no other mode of
still hunting offers the ghost of a chance. When a man is moving
through the woods, wary, watchful animals are pretty certain to catch
sight of him. But let him keep perfectly quiet and the conditions are
reversed. I have had my best luck and killed my best deer, by
practically waiting hour after hour on runways. But the time when a
hunter could get four or five fair shots in a day by watching a runway
has passed away forever. Never any more will buffalo be seen in solid
masses covering square miles in one pack. The immense bands of elk and
droves of deer are things of the past, and "The game must go."